The Moment: It looked like we were in for a game with a lot of back and forth, as Yovani Gallardo looked eminently hittable early on. It took, therefore, until the 2nd inning for the Mariners to put their foot on the throats of the Twins, when Mitch Haniger hit a ground rule double over Byron Buxton’s head. It could have been worse, because the bases were loaded, so the fact that the ball hopped the fence kept the run total down by 1! (Temporarily)
The Hero: As is often the case when the Twins get thumped, (or, much more rarely lately, when the Twins do the thumping) the hero is the one that put the game out of reach. It’s Mitch Haniger today, but he was more than a one trick pony, going 4-6 with 2 RBI.
The Goat: You’re getting hit hard when the liners are hit so sharply that not even Byron Buxton can reach them. The funny thing about Adalberto Mejia’s disaster of an appearance was that his FIP for the game was 2.55. Best not to take advanced metrics in small sample sizes.
The Soundtrack: Listening to ESPN Radio tonight, breaking down the NBA Finals. Congrats to the Golden State Warriors, and for that matter, congrats to the Pittsburgh Penguins, Rafael Nadal and especially Jelena Ostapenko for winning recent championships. Ostapenko gets an extra nod for not being an overwhelming favorite when they won.
The Story: In a refreshing change of pace, it was actually the starting pitcher that saw the game get away from him! Adalberto Mejia had one good inning, the third, but the rest were garbage. The Mariners scored 9 times under his watch, with 4 of those runs unearned. Of course, the error was even his, thanks to an errant throw. He was BABIPed pretty hard, though, with a .529 mark. Not great.
The rest of the bullpen didn’t help, either. I only said the game was already out of hand by the time they came in. Alex Wimmers was bad. Craig Breslow gave up back to back home runs (which is bad, also). Chris Gimenez, not a pitcher, was also bad at pitching. Buddy Boshers continues to be the only pitcher that shows up and doesn’t lead to bad times. That doesn’t seem like something that will last.
The Twins bad game and the fact that the draft was tonight made it difficult not to think of the future. Current middle infielder Brian Dozier led the offensive charge with 3 hits, all to the opposite field, which really excited Bert Blyleven. The Twins first round selection, Royce Lewis may eventually take over in one of those spots, but on this particular night, it was the only position that really gave any Twins fans the warm fuzzies.
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